How long were the days?

[theophilus]

One issue that people disagree over is how long the six days of creation were.  Some people think they were literal 24 hour days and some think that they were merely long time periods of indefinite length.  Which side is correct?  Is it even possible that both views are wrong?

Sometimes the word “day” is used in the Bible to denote a long period of time.  For example, the time of God’s judgment at the end of the age is called the Day of the Lord.  And in Genesis 2:4 the entire creation period is called a day.

These are the generations  of the heavens and the earth when they were created,  in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

But could the days of creation have been such indeterminate periods of time?

The first day is described in Genesis 1:3-5.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

The day included a period of light and a period of  darkness.  This day and each of those that followed it are described as consisting of an evening and a morning.  It is clear that these were literal days, each one consisting of one rotation of the earth on its axis.

Does this mean they were 24 hour days like the ones we have today?  That would depend on whether the earth rotated at the same speed then that it does today.

The worldwide flood in Noah’s time involved more that just covering the world with water.  The fact that the water in the oceans once covered the whole world shows that the surface of the earth was much flatter before the flood.  After the flood the continents and islands rose up so that they were above the water.

The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them.  You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
Psalm 104:8-9 ESV

Changes of this magnitude could have changed the speed of the earth’s rotation and thus changed the length of the day.

The earliest calendars that we have any record of are based on a 360 day year with extra days added to bring the calendar into alignment with the seasons.  Why didn’t they simple develop a 365 days calendar to begin with?  One possible explanation is that before the flood there were only 360 days in a year and the first civilizations after the flood retained the old calendars instead of making new ones.

To calculate the possible length of a preflood day I first found the number of minutes in the extra 5 1/4 days. The result was 7,560 minutes. I then divided this by the 360 days and got 21 minutes. If our days were 21 minutes longer there would be 360 days in the year and the earliest calendars would have been accurate and not needed any adjustments.  It seems possible that the days of creation were actually 24 hours and 21 minutes long.

 

[ddgently]

It's interesting that you quote Psalm 104 to support a geological hypothesis (namely, that pre-Flood the surface of earth was flatter and post-flood the geographic formations we see to day arose suddenly).

Do you therefore also take Psalm 104:5 to be literal, and also to be applied to our understanding of physical reality? If not, why?

 

[Izdaari]

I really don't have any idea how long the "days" were, except that they must have been pretty long.
Since I believe the scientists about the age of the earth and the universe, I cannot believe in YEC.
And since I believe God created everything, I can't believe in a-theistic evolution.
The remaining possibilities are OEC and theistic evolution.
I don't know which is true, but am content to wait until the next life for the answer.

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

I don't know, but they got a whole lot longer after Obama was elected. 

 

[HereIStand]

The earliest calendars that we have any record of are based on a 360 day year with extra days added to bring the calendar into alignment with the seasons.  Why didn’t they simple develop a 365 days calendar to begin with?  One possible explanation is that before the flood there were only 360 days in a year and the first civilizations after the flood retained the old calendars instead of making new ones.

To calculate the possible length of a preflood day I first found the number of minutes in the extra 5 1/4 days. The result was 7,560 minutes. I then divided this by the 360 days and got 21 minutes. If our days were 21 minutes longer there would be 360 days in the year and the earliest calendars would have been accurate and not needed any adjustments.  It seems possible that the days of creation were actually 24 hours and 21 minutes long.

Interesting study. Thank you for sharing this. This is new to me.

I would take the creation days as ordinary calendar days, not extended time periods.
It seems possible though to allow for an extended time period between the creation of time and the heavens and earth in Genesis 1:1 and the first day of creation in Genesis 1:3-5. Yet it's also reasonable to argue the other way, or that there need not have been an extended period of time at all. And that the creation week started just after the creation of time and the heavens and the earth.

 

[bgwilkinson]

Here is a link to Walt Brown's online book. He has a PHD from MIT

If you have never read his theory you may find it interesting and thought provoking.


http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/


He gives an interesting take with his Hydroplate Theory.

http://creationwiki.org/Hydroplate_theory

 

[bgwilkinson]

Here is a llink to Barry Setterfield's theories on zero point energy and cosmology.

He has some very interesting ideas about the changes that may have occurred since the beginning.

Check out his site. I think you will find it very thought provoking.

http://www.setterfield.org/Data_and_Creation/ZPE-Plasma_model.html

 

[theophilus]

It seems possible though to allow for an extended time period between the creation of time and the heavens and earth in Genesis 1:1 and the first day of creation in Genesis 1:3-5.

There is another possible interpretation.  The first verse simply states that God created everything and the rest of the chapter describes in detail on part of the creation, that of the earth.  The creation account states that the first humans were created on the sixth day and this is followed in chapter two with a detailed account of how this was done.  Perhaps this pattern extends back so the the account consists of three parts:

A statement that God created the universe.

A detailed account of one part of that creation, the world we live in.

A detailed account of one part of the creation of the world, the creation of Adam and Eve.

 

[BandGuy]

I really don't have any idea how long the "days" were, except that they must have been pretty long.
Since I believe the scientists about the age of the earth and the universe, I cannot believe in YEC.
And since I believe God created everything, I can't believe in a-theistic evolution.
The remaining possibilities are OEC and theistic evolution.
I don't know which is true, but am content to wait until the next life for the answer.

I think there is a third option:  Apparent Age Theory.  Honestly, this is not an issue that I would get dogmatic about, but I think it is a possibility.

 

[BandGuy]

Here is a llink to Barry Setterfield's theories on zero point energy and cosmology.

He has some very interesting ideas about the changes that may have occurred since the beginning.

Check out his site. I think you will find it very thought provoking.

http://www.setterfield.org/Data_and_Creation/ZPE-Plasma_model.html

Sorry but I don't think either one of the Setterfields is very credible.  They always came off as kooks to me.

 

[Izdaari]

I really don't have any idea how long the "days" were, except that they must have been pretty long.
Since I believe the scientists about the age of the earth and the universe, I cannot believe in YEC.
And since I believe God created everything, I can't believe in a-theistic evolution.
The remaining possibilities are OEC and theistic evolution.
I don't know which is true, but am content to wait until the next life for the answer.

I think there is a third option:  Apparent Age Theory.  Honestly, this is not an issue that I would get dogmatic about, but I think it is a possibility.

I didn't know the term so I googled it. Ok, I have heard that argument before. But I don't buy for a second the attempts to explain away its deceptive nature. Of course God could have done it that way... but I absolutely don't think He would have. It seems to me totally out of character. "But He told us about it!" No, I don't think so. The Creation story ring trues to me as literary account of events... but not as a literal account.

 

[BandGuy]

I really don't have any idea how long the "days" were, except that they must have been pretty long.
Since I believe the scientists about the age of the earth and the universe, I cannot believe in YEC.
And since I believe God created everything, I can't believe in a-theistic evolution.
The remaining possibilities are OEC and theistic evolution.
I don't know which is true, but am content to wait until the next life for the answer.

I think there is a third option:  Apparent Age Theory.  Honestly, this is not an issue that I would get dogmatic about, but I think it is a possibility.

I didn't know the term so I googled it. Ok, I have heard that argument before. But I don't buy for a second the attempts to explain away its deceptive nature. Of course God could have done it that way... but I absolutely don't think He would have. It seems to me totally out of character. "But He told us about it!" No, I don't think so. The Creation story ring trues to me as literary account of events... but not as a literal account.

Adam and Eve:  Created as babies or full grown adults who multiplied and filled the earth?

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

I really don't have any idea how long the "days" were, except that they must have been pretty long.
Since I believe the scientists about the age of the earth and the universe, I cannot believe in YEC.
And since I believe God created everything, I can't believe in a-theistic evolution.
The remaining possibilities are OEC and theistic evolution.
I don't know which is true, but am content to wait until the next life for the answer.

I think there is a third option:  Apparent Age Theory.  Honestly, this is not an issue that I would get dogmatic about, but I think it is a possibility.

It's a possibility, but I think it's more likely we've got everything about dating objects wrong.  Radiometric dating is totally unreliable.  Freshly formed rock (from lava) only years old was dated as being millions of years old. 

I am skeptical about everything scientists claim to know about the universe.  We see fully formed galaxies just like local galaxies 13 billion light years away.  Therefore what we're seeing is something that existed supposedly 13 billion years ago.  Yet  they look just like the local galaxies.  And they were supposedly formed at about the same time the universe was first formed.  Now that's a neat trick. 

Science is great for measuring observable events.  It sucks at explaining things that happened pre-history.